Live Right Now | Gerrit W. Gong

As we learn to make important decisions, we must find the balance between seeking the Lord's guidance and having the courage to make our own choices.

This devotional was given at BYU given March 20, 2007, when Elder Gong was assistant to the president for planning and assessment at Brigham Young University.

Read the talk here:
https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/gerrit-w-gong_live-right-now/

Read more about Gerrit W. Gong here:
https://speeches.byu.edu/speakers/gerrit-w-gong/

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"President Gordon B. Hinckley’s life is a testimony of how to both pray and work. “Get on your knees and ask for help, and then get up and go to work, and you’ll be able to find your way through almost any situation,” he says. His good advice for university students and for all of us is also, “If you go to bed at 10:00 and get up by 6:00 a.m., things will work out for you.” (In Sheri L. Dew, Go Forward with Faith: The Biography of Gordon B. Hinckley [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1996], 167.)

My wife, Susan, and I courted across two hemispheres. She was teaching in Provo. I was studying at Oxford University in England while trying to learn everything I could about her from across the Atlantic Ocean. Call it “distance education” of the best kind. It’s one reason I can honestly say I earned a PhD in international relations.

Both Susan and I knew what we wanted, but we also sought the Lord’s confirming inspiration.

I prayed many times before I found the right way to ask the right question in a way that felt right for me. It was not just “Should I marry Susan?” That is, “Please tell me what to do.” It was also to say humbly, “I want to ask Susan to marry me. Please confirm this decision, which I have made with all my heart.” We waited and listened with faith for His quiet confirmation—answers that come according to each varied circumstance.

During his final visit to BYU, Elder Neal A. Maxwell quoted lines of verse given him by Professor John Sorenson. The verses describe

a great stallion at full gallop in a meadow, who—

at his master’s voice—seizes up to a stunned but instant halt. . . .

. . . only the velvet ears

prick forward, awaiting the next order.

[Mary Karr, “Who the Meek Are Not,” Atlantic Monthly 289, no. 5 (May 2002), 64]

Said Elder Maxwell, “Do you see a new picture of meekness being at ‘full gallop’ but with ‘velvet ears’?” (Neal A. Maxwell, “Blending Research and Revelation,” remarks at BYU President’s Leadership Council meeting, 19 March 2004).

A fourth quintessential existential dilemma: How do I distinguish between promptings of the Spirit and my own personal feelings? In this month’s Ensign, Elder Dallin H. Oaks reminds us humility precedes inspiration (see “Humility Precedes Inspiration,” Ensign, March 2007, 61; quoted from Oaks, “I Have a Question,” Ensign, June 1983, 27).

Humbly seeking inspiration while fully obeying all the commandments will help us determine if we are attracted to that cute girl or guy by spiritual prompting or as a response to a Madison Avenue perfume or aftershave. It can help us know when we are giving or receiving a priesthood blessing that what we are saying or hearing is not only what our own heart may earnestly want (or not want) but is in fact the will, mind, word, and voice of the Lord (see D&C 68:3–4).

By definition, QEDs involve real choices. We choose not only between good and evil but often between good and good. Happily, we are not alone as we seek to live right now.

Promptings from Heavenly Father through the Holy Ghost can help us live right now. I am grateful Heavenly Father respects perfectly our agency and at the same time—in circumstances and at times He knows best—also prompts and guides us.

In the spirit of a devotional, let me briefly share four personal experiences where promptings taught me how the Lord will guide us as we make our own best choices while seeking inspiration.

First, promptings sometimes open unanticipated opportunities to help others.

With us here today is a wonderful woman who shared this experience. She arrived at her local supermarket and felt prompted to enter through a different door than the one she normally used. She found herself in a less familiar section of the store.

There she couldn’t help overhearing a conversation. It went something like this.

“Can’t we get jam? I like jam with peanut butter. Besides, you chose last time.”

”Maybe so, but we need more protein. Cold cuts have more protein than jam.”

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